Dream

Intention (2200 the night before)

I will write in journal upon any real—reality check—ization of sleeping. Even if I don't remember anything. I will remember my dreams. I will write them down. I will WBTS at 0400. I will reality check and DILD. I will WILD after WBTS.

I will continue to enjoy the training I am doing.

Sleep time.

Working Meditation

Much realer than usual. About work. I'm trying to set up a more effective meeting, and basically my idea is a meditation circle. The meeting is Zoom, but as people dial in my office gets bigger and everyone is sitting in a circle.

Things get a bit awkward as I try to make the circle more than a status update about work.

Wake-Back-to-Sleep (logged at 0430 this morning)

Alarm not working. Turning it off. Intent will have to do. Reality check. Those are coming sooner and sooner as I start writing in journal. A good sign, I think.

Setting base intentions seemed to work very well. Though maybe still too many. I should make sure I can recite them all and maybe try drifting off doing that (may increase chance of WILD).

Write in journal. Remember dreams. Write them down. Conflict is a dream sign. Reality check. Am I dreaming? Look at hands. Plug nose and try breathing through nose. Repeat until dreaming.

(0442 BTS)

Cat Enjoys Bathing

We're slowly trying to get Yoda (our cat) used to bathing. We haven't prioritized this much. But we have a tiny tub (which is a kitty litter container that we never put litter into) that we have her go in for treats.

In the dream, Yoda wants a bath. She's meowing for our attention on a table, pawing at her empty tub. I fill it with warm water, and am in awe watching her step in, and lay down in the water. She loves it.

I pet her to spread the water over the few dry patches that remain.

Ben Shapiro is my Pharmacist

Ben Shapiro is a terrible YouTube conservative that I do not recommend looking up. In this dream, I am waiting in line at the pharmacy. Ben is arguing with everyone in line "If you gave people the means to survive without working, they wouldn't work," I heard him say to someone.

Eventually, I decide to lay down, because the line is taking so long to move. I fall asleep. Ben Shapiro wakes me up, "You know what'll be nice about tomorrow? I won't see you," is how he wakes me up.

He processes my prescription and is surprised by the doctor I go to. Seems my doctor is close to a shady part of town or something.

Quakecon: Old Friends and New

I'm at Quakecon. It's a different hotel than either of the previous ones. At least the BYOC setup is different. My friend Kevin came, and he hasn't come since our first years ago. "I should get a laptop stand like that," he says, pointing to a device.

I look carefully at it. "This is a Switch dock." But I knew what he meant. I had a laptop stand that I used when plugging my laptop into my desk setup.

The person sitting to the right of me looks like she's playing a neat game. She asks me if I want to play, but not in English. I think it's Korean, though I don't know Korean so it definitely wasn't. We have a conversation about something but I can't remember its content. At the end, I say 「楽しかった」(tanoshikatta, which is "this was fun" in Japanese). I don't know why I thought to say it. She didn't seem to understand, and I didn't expect her to.

Wake (logged at 0730 this morning)

So, WILD attempts once again led to a lot of hypnagogic "dreams" (much like naps). But I think I got much closer to just dreaming this time. Several times I observed myself starting to snore, for instance. Also several times I started seeing with eyes instead of visualizing. And I definitely still did some dreaming but I feel like it was a bunch of short ones.

Yoda was once again in the dreams. I also think I managed to go to my aunt's. Perhaps both of these should be DILD triggers.

I think at least once I watched myself fall into a dream and still did not manage to be lucid. Progress, though!

Pre-nap (1250)

Play with directing hypnagogy. Try not to "wake up" when hearing myself snore.

Post-nap (1300)

Did some work thinking. Slightly hypnagogic. Very short nap.

Meditation (Day 91)

Intentions for the day:

• Stage 4 intention (vigilance on keeping introspective awareness continuous)
• Fall back to stage 3 if necessary
• Label the distractions, do it over and over so that it becomes automatic
• Before adjusting posture, count 8 breaths
• Learn the various different ways I have to guide myself back to the breath
  • E.g. away from tempting distractions, away from posture distractions, away from pain
• Note where the breath was when you label a distraction (attention, awareness, or forgotten)
• Body-scan in the beginning and latter half of meditation
• During planned attention away from breath, keep breath in awareness

Post-Meditation

Leg of the day often falls asleep again. Bad posture? Back also complained a bit today. Shoulder in a good place, though.

I focused on staying still at the end and some interesting movements happened automatically, without any realization that they were coming consciously. One movement basically readjusted everything, but I noticed that circulation to my leg returned and that overall it felt like a solid and stable posture.... Will Have to try to replicate. Staying still and waiting for automatic motion may be the answer? It suggests to me that there's parts of myself I have trouble hearing, and that stillness is the answer to learning to hear them, and I anticipate eventually I'll notice the trigger causing the automatic movement and just "hear" my body (and my various parts of my subconscious mind) better.

Various points of stillness today felt very powerful. Looking forward to more progress there.

Experimental

Timeblock-checking habit is growing. I do still manipulate the day, but it seems like there's better rigor to it now.

Been bad about music stuff now that it's more explicitly about me practicing some tools. Will maybe make that next week's experimental focus.